Goodnight
by IggyUnicornSparkles
Summary: The Russian stared out at the snow, lips curving upwards slightly, as he attempted to smile for the 5th time today. Sometimes he liked to do it, pretend everything was okay, just by a simple smile, but usually the smile wavered, like a projection onto a white screen in faded sepia tones, the lines blurred and the faces distant...


The Russian stared out at the snow, lips curving upwards slightly, as he attempted to smile for the 5th time today. Sometimes he liked to do it, pretend everything was okay, just by a simple smile, but usually the smile wavered, like a projection onto a white screen in faded sepia tones, the lines blurred and the faces distant. It jerked, and twitched, and ended up aching, it was always a struggle to hold it up, his cheeks would tire, there would be a dull ache. The kind that hurt just as much, but was too discrete to make out, yet he still knew it was there. Just like the empty bottle of vodka lying, being slowly buried by the falling snow, a few feet away from him.

It had been full...once... then again, so had most things, his house, his heart, his hands.

Now the only thing that was full seemed to be his head, the nagging thoughts that danced around his mind, each one an individual idea with the same concept in each, each with it's own sad way of getting to him, each one a nightmare of it's own.

Cruel, it was a cruel world, the kind that made lying down in the snow seem warming.

He shed his coat, dropping it near the now almost buried vodka bottle, and took another step forwards, boot crunching, before dropping into the snow underneath him, breath catching in his throat as he knelt down, starting to dig with his hands.

Deeper, deeper, and perhaps he'd find somewhere, a wonder land perhaps, where all his dreams could come through. Ivan, as old as he was, had long learnt that hell wasn't hot at all, it was cold, like ice, if it had been hot, he would have ended his life already to get there.

He knew he was going to hell, why of course, everyone has sinned at some point, but most people lived to regret it. One of the only things that made him smile, the way Ivan could make people's eyes light up.

He could stare into their souls through those two holes in their heads, first they would open them wide, then the tears would fill them, glistening brightly, illuminated by the dim light that flickered every so often like his own state of mind, then the tears would fall like rain, pounding against the stone tiled floor and making tiny puddles in the dust.

How he missed the rain of agony, the way they seemed to wash the floor, making rivers in the cracks, eventually freezing as they got to the corners of the room. How he missed even more, the warmth of their skin, the way they would grab onto his arm, the way their mouths would move frantically, the way their eyebrows would almost raise to their hairline, the way he couldn't hear their pitiful begging because he was too lost in the fading light of their eyes, something he himself had lost a while ago.

Afterwards, he would take a shovel, and dig holes in the ground, six feet long, two feet wide, six feet deep. He would lay them to sleep, they were no longer of use, they no longer had the light in their eyes.

Ivan would kiss them goodnight and turn out the lights, close the door and walk back into the house.

Now he would only have to do it himself.

Seven feet long, one foot wide, two feet deep.

He was going to hell for real this time.

"Goodnight" the words slipped off of his tongue in a faint whisper that seemed to blow away with the breeze. Ivan never cried, never showed his remorse, the wind always seemed to do that for him, carry his pain to the next village and back. It would howl and moan throughout the night, and sometimes he would lay on his side, listening to the crying that the wind made, and wondered what had happened to him, to make him cry so loudly.

He heard no reply, but that wasn't strange to him, he'd grown accustomed to hearing no reply, yet...Ivan still tried, in the hope that someday he would.

As he laid down in the ice grave, he could hear the faint music, a music box, in fact. He gave his head a small shake, and sighed softly, his breath misting out in front of him as the snow covered him lightly. Slowly he felt his arms and legs go numb, but he didn't panic, he welcomed it.

A small light sparked into his eyes as he closed them again, gladly letting the world fade.

And when the warmth came, when the darkness finally greeted him, he embraced it in open arms.

**A/N: **** A drabble I wrote from my muse: Once Upon A December from Anastasia ^-^ **


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